The Blackberry was initially mostly of interest to "important people" whose organizations were paying for easier texting and email on the go. I did eventually get a Treo in 2006 on my own mostly because I was doing some travel on crutches and didn't want to carry a laptop. But the iPhone--especially by a few years post-2007 introduction--was really transformational for a lot of people in the mainstream. But, as you say, that was dependent on a lot of things that weren't inherent in the phone hardware.

Mobile communications for the most part was very much a premium early adopter phenomenon for people who really needed it in some form and/or didn't much care about the cost. Satellite was like that and is only now slowly changing.